It was upon this day that things got interesting around here. Duncan and Miyel met Chance and D'lar for the first time at the Castle Amber. Duncan had been a longtime resident, and Miyel had arrived only a few weeks earlier. The other two had only been in Amber for a few days. During their introcutions, they were puzzled by the mysterious appearance of a dead raven found outside the Main Hall of the castle. The bird had a dagger protruding from its breast. The next day, a shapeshifter, Harlequin, revealed his true form during a ceremony in the Great Hall. He had been posing as one of the king's servants. While in this disguise, Miyel had and he seemed to have a brief mental conflict. Worried that he had been discovered, he reverted to his normal human form and ran out of the room. Duncan, Chance, D'lar, and Miyel followed right behind him. Harlequin, using some quick-growing vines, attached these to the landing on the second floor, near the stairs. He quickly climbed up, with Chance following behind. The three other pursuers went around to ascend the stairs. As Chance was climbing, the vines attacked him and bound him in midair. Using some powerful trump gate, Harlequin managed to escape the Castle, but D'lar followed him to his destination. D'lar returned a while later, seriously injured. Apparently Harlequin was able to defeat him in whatever location the trump gate led. Harlequin had given some message to D'lar for Duncan, but D'lar never delivered it coherently.
King Random had a wonderful duty for them younger Amberites to perform for him. There was a large conference about to take place among Golden Circle shadows at Castle Amber. He ordered them to entertain some of the diplomats. This was supposed to be a routine task which the younger amberites should have been able to easily handle. Unfortunately events did not proceed in that manner. Chance single-handedly caused a diplomatic incident when he pushed a diplomat out of a tower window. Chance claims that the diplomat had physically attacked him. Despite this excuse of self-defense, Random had to temporarily exile Chance for political reasons.
Duncan added to the inflammation by insulting a different diplomat. Apparently the shifter Harlequin had struck yet again. The diplomat that Duncan was entertaining began to ask odd questions. Following his gut, Duncan pressed the diplomat in return. Soon he was able to reveal that this man was not who he appeared to be. In a chase which eventually led to a mix up between the real diplomat and the fake one, Duncan inadvertantly offended the real one. Despite the apparent mix up, the diplomat demanded an apology repeatedly, and Duncan adamantly refused to give one.
Adventure dropped into their hands in the form of a diary, delivered by Raven's trusty devil, Elvin. Raven was yet another cousin, whom some of them had yet to meet. The diary, written by Raven, described an ongoing conflict with the Chaos House Tremere. Apparently this house wished to instigate a fight with Amber, and chose Raven as their target. They learned that Raven had been missing for a few days, so they assumed that he had been kidnapped by House Tremere.
D'lar, Duncan, and Miyel, agreed to head to the Courts to rescue Raven. D'lar, being of a somewhat impatient nature, tired of waiting for Duncan and Miyel. So he broke into their apartments to make sure they weren't avoiding him. Unfortunately for him, he was unsuccessful in avoiding or defeating the guards whom caught him in the act. After taking a beating, he was locked up in the brig.
So Duncan and Miyel headed off to the Courts on their own. By similar connections they encountered Chance there. He had arrived earlier, but had made a bad impression on his hostess. After a bit of running around, Chance discovered and defeated a Tremere demon servant. In a strange turn of events, the apparent enemy to Amber, Harlequin, helped spring Raven from the House Tremere. A duel between Raven and Khias ensued, the main Tremere agitator against Raven, over the Abyss. Raven didn't seem to know who Harlequin was, but the Tremeres seem to know him as a good friend, before his seemingly traitorous act of helping free their prisoner. Raven won the fight, sending Khias into the Pit. A near battle between the supporters of Khias and those of Raven was broken up when Harlequin pulled out a strange weapon before all. The Amberites then returned to Amber with a tired Raven.
The cousins became suspicious when they noticed that King Random wasn't around recently. In fact, they realized that they hadn't seen any Elders for awhile. Queen Vialle eventually conceded information on threats facing the multiverse. She told them that the effects of the two new Patterns, the Broken Pattern repaired by Merlin and Corwin's Pattern, could have catastrophic results since they were gateways to alternate universes. These universes were converging upon ours, possibly causing the destruction of their universe. Since this was quite unacceptable, Random went off to a Pattern to destroy the gateway between the universes, before it caused any serious harm. The other Elders followed quickly behind, however, thinking the King's safety came before any external threat. Random had left a message for them to go to the other Pattern and nullify that threat. Since no one was now heading to the other gateway to sever it, the cousins decided they had better. The problem was they didn't know which one the others had gone to, and neither did Vialle. Since Duncan had had some strange but secret interactions with the Harlequin character since Raven's rescue, they decided to invite him to help, since his multiverse was threatened, too. That way they could keep an eye on him as well.
The cousins figured that it would be more difficult to enter Corwin's universe, so Duncan, D'lar, Chance, Harlequin and Miyel headed off to the Broken Pattern. Meanwhile, Vialle took refuge in Rebma. Duncan had almost finished walking the Broken Pattern when Khias and several black gooey creatures attack them. They all scattered after that, enable to stave off these attacks.
Since he made it through the Broken Pattern during the attack, thanks to his cousins, Duncan returned to their universe after destroying the gateway in the Broken Pattern alternate universe. Unfortunately this stranded the Elders who it turned out had entered this universe. Duncan, Harlequin, and Miyel went off to Corwin's Pattern and entered that universe. They were able to walk it with the help of Merlin, Corwin's son. They found themselves in a bizarre mutation of victorian Paris, and were soon separated in a riot against the current King.
In a bizarre turn of events, Miyel and Duncan wound up on opposite sides of a rebel group's attempts to overthrow the monarch, and the government's attempts to stop them. Apparently Duncan attacked and injured Miyel before the were able to identify each other. Using this raid as an excuse to enter the King's Castle, in which lay the gateway, the two found Harlequin already friends with the King, a Brand look-alike! The three regrouped, and while Duncan and the injured Miyel fought a desperate battle against the force of the King's guards, the well defended Harlequin was able to traverse the gateway, a sort of Pattern, and they were able to escape. The fact that the chaosite was able to traverse this perverted Pattern lead to many questions, but they had to be put off due to immediate concerns they learned of.
Upon their return, they were informed that a large shadow army was marching against Amber, in retaliation for Chance's diplomatic faux pas. Ash, another cousin, made his entrance at this time. Since no Elders except for Bleys were in Amber, Chance took control of the army, Ash the navy, and Duncan the regency. Miyel went off to the Broken Pattern to try to rescue the Elders.
What ensued next was the Diplomat War. Against 2 to 1 odds, Chance managed to hold off the enemy. Duncan turned the tide by bringing back the Guns of Avalon. Meanwhile, Miyel went to the Broken Pattern universe, rescued the Elders and destroyed the gateway. These adventures alone could fill volumes.
Many of the younger Amberites agreed that Khias was becoming a major threat to them, so they decided to go out on a manhunt. Five of them, Duncan, Ash, Kendric, Raven, and Miyel banded together to destroy this Tremere. They didn't have to search far. Khias was attacking Harlequin in his own home shadow. It was becoming clear that, by design or many coincidences, the Harlequin character was deeply tied to these cousins. So they came to Harle's defense and joined forces against Khias. After a huge battle, they managed to defeat him, with Duncan delivering the final blow. Kendric sealed Khias' fate by decapitating him.
Besieged yet again by potential tragedy, the cousins were contacted by Merlin. Apparently their cousin, Adriale, had involved herself in some matters chaotic. It seemed that Chaos political prisoners were all exiled to a shadow from which there were only two entraces and exits. One was a mirror controlled by the King of Chaos. The other was a gem-like artifact created or discovered by an anciant Chaosite. Adriale had gone to the exile shadow, known as the Edge, to retrieve this gemstone, called the Emerald. In a conflict over the Kingship, Merlin and his half brother Despil had fought. Merlin had won and exiled Despil, learning only afterwards that he had the Emerald on him.
Adriale managed to recover the gem, but to escape the Edge, a dangerous and bizarre place, she destroyed the Emerald, not knowing the severity of her act. This lead to the destruction of the barriers around the Edge, and freedom to every political criminal in the history of the Courts of Chaos. The other cousins learned of this and decided their was nothing they could do but to warn Amber. Merlin took his throne with dubious beginnings.
Meanwhile, a few days after the Diplomat War, a grand Ball was held at Castle Amber, to celebrated their victory, and solidify the peace among the remaining Golden Circle Shadows. Everyone was elegantly dressed and having a wonderful time. It was the first celebration in Amber for quite some time. The festivities were finally winding down when Duncan made his grand entrance, screaming out "Redrum, redrum!!" Wait, that was some ShadowEarth movie. Duncan actually screeched "Murder, murder!" Alas, the Ball ended on a sour note. Duncan claimed to have seen Merlin take a crossbow bolt to the face in an attack from Despil, recently freed from the Edge. Later on that evening, Harlequin was arrested by Ash on orders from Random himself,when he arrived in the Castle. He was charged with treason, murder, and spying, and his execution was planned for sometime within the next few days. Miyel and Ash himself are planning to represent Harlequin, who is pleading not guilty on all counts, at a trial they convinced Random to have for him.